Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms

07Apr

In case you’re behind on your 4.1 information, like I was, there’s a new drama queen in town called Call to Arms. Before I get into it, lets have a look at it:

In patch 4.1 we’ll be introducing Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms, a new system intended to lower queue times. Call to Arms will automatically detect which class role is currently the least represented in the queue, and offer them additional rewards for entering the Dungeon Finder queue and completing a random level-85 Heroic dungeon.

Any time the Dungeon Finder queue is longer than a few minutes for level-85 Heroics, the Call to Arms system kicks in and determines which role is the least represented. In the case of tanking being the least represented role, the “Call to Arms: Tanks” icon will display in the Dungeon Finder UI menu where class roles are selected, and will also display on the UI when the queue pops and you are selected to enter a dungeon. Regardless of your role, you’ll always be able to see which role currently has been Called to Arms, if any.

Call to Arms is meant to lower wait times by offering additional rewards for queuing as the currently least represented role. To be eligible for the additional rewards you must solo queue for a random level-85 Heroic in the role that is currently being Called to Arms, and complete the dungeon by killing the final boss. Every time you hit these requirements (there is no daily limit) you’ll receive a goodie bag that will contain some gold, a chance at a rare gem, a chance at a flask/elixir (determined by spec), a good chance of receiving a non-combat pet (including cross faction pets), and a very rare chance at receiving a mount. The pets offered come from a wide variety of sources, and include companions like the Razzashi Hatchling, Parrot Cage (Cockatiel), and Tiny Sporebat, but the mounts are those specifically only available through dungeons (not raids), like the Reins of the Raven Lord from Sethekk Halls, Swift White Hawkstrider from Magisters’ Terrace, and Deathcharger’s Reins from Stratholme.

This system is meant to address the unacceptable queue times currently being experienced by those that queue for the DPS role at max level. The long queue times are, of course, caused by a very simple lack of representation in the Dungeon Finder by tanks, and to some extent healers. We don’t feel the tanking and healing roles have any inherent issues that are causing the representation disparity, except that fulfilling them carries more responsibility. Understandably, players prefer to take on that responsibility in more organized situations than what the Dungeon Finder offers, but perhaps we can bribe them a little. While this system gives tanks and healers something extra, the incentive is being provided so that we can help players in the DPS role get into more dungeons, get better gear, and continue progressing.

While the gold, gems, flasks, and elixirs are OK incentives, we knew we needed something more substantial. We had briefly considered Valor Points and epics, but decided that wouldn’t be working toward the goal of helping DPS players progress, and ultimately wouldn’t keep tanks and healers in the Dungeon Finder system for very long. We settled on pets and dungeon-found mounts as they’re cosmetic/achievement items that players tend to try to get on their own, so why not change that up and offer them a chance to get some of those elusive pets and mounts in a way that also helps other players? Even if they don’t get a pet or mount, or get one they already have, the gold and other goodies still feel rewarding enough that it won’t feel like a waste of effort.

We think it’s a pretty solid incentive to get tanks and healers queuing, give max-level players another way to collect the pets and mounts they so desire, and above all, to improve wait times for DPS players sitting in queues. In the case of lower level dungeons, it’s actually not uncommon for DPS to be the least represented role, and so if this new system works out and we’re pleased with the results, we may consider applying this same mechanic to lower level dungeons as well.

So to sum that up, tanks and healers potentially receive extra rewards for solo-queuing for random heroics. If you’re DPS then you’re basically screwed out of the deal. The rewards are some extra gold (no amount mentioned), a low chance of rare gems or flasks/elixirs suited to your spec, a good chance at receiving vanity pets, and a rare chance at a mount.

The idea is to shorten queue times for DPS by offering more rewards to the tanks and healers who are in shorter supply and in essence the reason for your DPS queue taking so freaking long. When there’s 50 of you waiting to team up with 8 of them, you’re going to have to wait your turn.

Drama
The primary point of drama on this is that it’s statistically impossible for DPS to ever get anything out of this deal, so four of the game’s ten classes which are pure DPS classes (no tank or healing spec) are given the inverted hybrid tax by never even having the option of changing spec to benefit from this. The next point of drama comes in which items are being rewarded, particularly the mounts, as people in many cases dedicated a great deal of time to farming those mounts and now people are theoretically getting them “for free”.

I love the irony in looking at my feed reader this morning looking for people who posted about Call to Arms and found that Cold had a new post on Opportunity Cost of Free Items, which applies quite well to the current situation. So remember here, DPS, they aren’t actually getting these items “for free”, they’re having to do the same content that you are. Granted, DPS get nothing but a theoretical faster queue time, but the DPS wouldn’t get anything at all if those tanks/healers hadn’t queued in the first place.

Now seems like a good time to mention that while I’m an obsessive altoholic, I am a DPS. My main during BC/Wrath was a Mage and my main right now is a Shadow Priest. Sure, I can heal on the Priest, but I suck at it and it’s not what I like or want to do on her. I do have six level 85 toons, two of which are tanks and one that’s a healer, but they don’t get any play time.

To give you a little bit of hope at least, this does give me at least a small stirring of interest in actually playing my Paladin again. I don’t think I’ll bother taking my healers out, but I might do some tanking for another chance at that stupid Baron’s mount that I’ve tried to farm over 300 times and still never even seen it drop.

Visible Problems
The major problem with the system is that it doesn’t actually address the issue of queue times, it simply puts a band-aid on it that will last for a short while and then fall off as the PUG tanks claim the items they want and then stop queuing. Several people have written about problems they see with the system, but the one that I felt was the best read without being over the top ranty or dismissive was Kurn with Why Bribery Won’t Help – Much.

There are always new toons to be leveled and new players joining the game, so the tank and healing pools do get refreshed all the time, but it’s not like every tank out there is going to spend a few hours in LFG every night for the next two years. Basically, the pool is going to constantly dwindle down even though it won’t disappear completely, but we will eventually get back to the point where we are right now.

Another good post I saw on the matter came from Thisius at DoTs and ‘Locks who pointed out that the real issue with people not wanting to queue as tanks and heals is more often the actual community, the people running with them that feed them nothing but criticism and insults or who do stupid crap to make their jobs harder and thus turn them off of tanking all together or at least turn them off of using LFG as opposed to guild runs. Though I would expand the suggestion of giving the tank the ability to kick people to instead give it to whichever of the tank/healer it is that got the Call.

For many people this band-aid will work great for the time that it’s useful, and then things will slide back to how they are right now once all of the special items have been collected. Eventually those tanks and healers are going to get the pets and mounts they want and then they’ll have no more reason to bother with heroics. Not to mention they’ve likely ran enough of them in trying to get those mounts that they’ve got every possible gear upgrade twice over.

Going back to Thisius’s post, we may very well see even more bad attitudes in LFG thanks to this once the dungeon is finished and the DPS see the tank score a rare mount. While some people like myself might congratulate the tank on their new mount, this may very well piss off the DPS to the point that they become dickish where perhaps they weren’t before. And I’m sure you’ll have tanks/healers that will flaunt it and do their best to piss you off even if you didn’t mind before. Just keep in mind that this particular problem is with the players, not something Blizzard has or hasn’t done.

Hidden Issues
This is where I go ahead and turn the tables a little bit to point out some of the things that not everybody thinks about or is aware of. And for this I’m going to quote one of my friends on twitter, @Feisttherogue, “Fact: the DPS role in WoW has the highest skill cap, fiercest competition, and most objectively measurable performance. The new system takes those players most able to ensure a new tank or healer succeeds OUT of the system, by denying them incentives. All while making it easier for those least prepared to take part to flood the matchmaking system and lower the quality of everyone’s run.”

It’s a simple truth that you cannot get through dungeons at the proper character/gear level without a tank and healer. They are vital roles and even more vital at this early point in the expansion. But good DPS is just as vital and potentially even more so with the recent changes to healing. The point here is that every single person in that group plays an important part in the outcome of any dungeon run. If you don’t have the DPS then those bosses aren’t going down. If you don’t have a tank then your healer’s going to die, and if you don’t have a healer then you’re all going to die. Round and round we go, everyone does their job and we all win, do it not and we all fail.

Feist makes an excellent point here that many people don’t understand or don’t take the time to consider. A somewhat poor tank can still perform well overall if the DPS can throttle their agro and use CC, and if the healer knows how to work within their mana budget, and a somewhat poor healer can still keep everyone alive if the tank is especially good or well geared and your DPS are strong enough to kill the mobs before they pose a major threat and can avoid unnecessary damage like standing in bad stuff. Tanks and healers can’t compensate for fail DPS, though.

So there’s the biggest “hidden” issue, that we’re denying rewards to what are potentially the most important factor in overall success/failure. In defense of this particular problem, at least Blizzard made the rewards mostly vanity items and that all of them can be obtained outside of the Call to Arms system. But, I think they would be better served by giving additional rewards to those dealing with the long queues than by giving them to those with instant queues.

My Thoughts
I applaud Blizzard in acknowledging that there’s a problem and making steps to overcome it. I don’t think this system is the answer, but it will serve as a decent short term band-aid. As a DPS, I really don’t care what rewards other people get if it really does result in shorter queues for me.

Blizzard, “..the incentive is being provided so that we can help players in the DPS role get into more dungeons, get better gear, and continue progressing.” They hope to accomplish that by rewarding tanks and healers to speed up queues for DPS. I haven’t sat down long enough to say “this” is what they should have done, as it will work better because of x, y and z. I have thought about it and gotten a couple of ideas, but I haven’t sat to think about the drawbacks of those suggestions.

I think they could better address the issue of gearing if they simply increased the amount of DPS gear that dropped. My point really is that rather than rewarding tanks and healers for queuing, they should reward DPS for enduring the longer queue times. Granted, that might make some tanks/healers queue as DPS instead, thus lengthening the queues, but at least it’s more directed at the real problem which is gearing up DPS.

By giving the DPS more gear you’re potentially addressing both issues at once. If you drop more DPS gear in dungeons then the DPS get geared faster and then stop running LFG because they already have the gear they need from them, thus lessening the DPS pool and increasing queue rates for the others. If you reward more Justice Points to the DPS then those who can spec into a tank/healing role are more likely to do so once they’ve earned the points to purchase their gear to fill that other role. Pure DPS of course wouldn’t benefit from it beyond purchasing heirlooms or professions mats, but Pure DPS are used to being screwed like that as their reward is (supposedly) higher DPS values than Hybrid DPS. Not that I’m justifying the screwing of the pures, that’s a whole other blog post all it’s own.

Like I said, I don’t think this is a bad short term fix for the issue at hand, but I don’t think it’s worth anywhere near the amount of drama that it’s caused so far. I do think that this is the wrong approach overall though, I feel that the DPS should be more rewarded for their longer queues instead of giving even more rewards to those with already near instant queues. I wouldn’t mind giving an extra 10 minutes to the queue if it meant I was going to get extra items, though I also wouldn’t mind cutting 10 minutes off of my queue if it meant someone else gets extra items.

[EDIT: Forgot the section below.]Speculative Problem
What most people are speculating will happen is that people will stay in their DPS gear, swap over to a tank/healing spec, and expect you to carry them through the dungeon so that they can get their freebies while you do all of the work. I can see some people trying to do this, I certainly wouldn’t put it beyond some of the players I’ve seen in my day, but this kind of reaction always provokes and eyeroll from me.

This situation is just like any other – there’s potential for both bad and good. There are dicks in the world, the system will be abused. But, there are still plenty of good players out there who will take advantage of the system as well. We all have different experiences with different aspects of this game, we find parts that we love and parts that we hate. We can both do the exact same content, maybe even in the same guild/group, and both come to different conclusions as to how enjoyable it was or was not. My experience with LFG for example has been very positive; I don’t run into morons or dickheads very often, but it does still happen even to me. Other people have had little-to-no good experiences in LFG at all and refuse to use it.

The fact is you’re not going to get a decent supply of good new tanks and healers if they’re never given an opportunity to try it out and succeed. Some of them are going to fail, you’ll have tanks that leveled in a DPS spec and have mostly DPS gear, but they’re working towards getting a decent set of tank gear and they’re looking for some practice. With any luck they’ll start in non-heroics, but some of them will not. The same applies to healers, of course.

Keep in mind that with the stat changes in Cataclysm it is significantly easier for someone who doesn’t have “tank” gear to step into the tanking role because Defense no longer exists as a stat. He’s probably lacking some Stamina and his avoidance stats could probably use some help as well, but his DPS gear will also give him better threat generation (in theory) so at least the healer should be able to focus primarily on him. Most of the healers (non-Paladin) can make a fairly smooth transition from DPS spec to healing spec while still using their caster DPS gear.

That doesn’t really get across the point I was trying to make…

Alright, let me put it this way – don’t jump to extreme conclusions. Yes, it’s going to happen, but you’re not going to have DPS-tanks in every single heroic you ever run. If you only run a handful, then yeah you might have a handful of them and thus assume that they’re all like that, but that’s just your particular experience up to that point. Give the little guy a chance before you shoot him in the head and leave his body to rot, he just might grow up to surprise you.

28 responses to “Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms”

“But, I think they would be better served by giving additional rewards to those dealing with the long queues than by giving them to those with instant queues. ”

Which only serves to draw MORE DPS into the queues, thus offsetting the entire point of this bonus.

While I respect that DPS are necessary and it stinks that they’ve got a long queue, finding a DPS for a random dungeon is not an issue right now.

” If you don’t have the DPS then those bosses aren’t going down.”

While I hate to disrespect another class, this isn’t always the case. A month or so back, I had a heroic stonecore run where not a one of the DPS got out of shatter radius (Including the ranged) on Ozruk. This resulted in them going down pretty quick. We still managed to down Ozruk and this isn’t even a toot my own horn thing as it was our tank that pulled it off, really (I went down myself at about a quarter health due to my own poor understanding of the DoT mechanic at the time).

The fact of the matter is, DPS is essential to getting a boss down in a timely fashion, but if you pair a good tank and healer together, a lot of dungeon bosses can be tackled (Obvious exception to bosses with adds, typically).

Giving DPS a thanks for waiting would be neat and all, but giving them an additional reward that the tanks and, to a lesser extent heals, don’t get is just going to result in those people who could be switching specs to tank to balance the queues running as DPS to get the shiny new toys.

Bandaid or not, this is probably the best solution for the time being, and I say this as someone who’s probably never going to see a one of these rewards, even healing (My average wait time for a heroic is 7-10 minutes, not at DPS levels, but these are going to nothing but tanks on my realm).

That’s a point that I did consider before I posted it. The fact remains that DPS queues are going to be long. They might get shorter with CtA, but they will never be instant as a general rule.

Which do you honestly think people are going to choose? Fast queues or a small chance at a rare mount? If I were a betting man, I’d say 80% of them will stick to the faster queue times, though many would try it at least once or twice before they gave up on the long queues.

I’ve seen tanks and healers down bosses mostly by themselves, but show me a pair that isn’t raid geared go clear a dungeon by themselves. Is it possible? In some cases, sure. In general? Not a chance.

That’s what I think is really the better idea overall. Rewarding everyone is important if you want people to participate, and I think the best actual approach to this is to reward those with longer queues with larger rewards to compensate.

By far the best post I’ve seen on this subject so far. Your thoughts made me rethink some initial feelings I had and extrapolate on others.
I said in the post you referenced that Blizzard can’t just code around the communities failings. What if I was wrong? Let’s pretend I can predict the future, and spell out a scenario for you. Battle.net get’s “rate your group” features with upvotes and downvotes for every member. This would fit into a “social” Battle.net strategy. Your Battle.net rep could effect things like queue times, who you are grouped with. They could even integrate it with upvoting and downvoting in the official forums. Hey maybe even upvote or downvote behavior in trade chat!

I don’t really think that there’s much a chance of this happening, but it’s almost like this is what it would take to get the community to moderate itself. Frankly, that isn’t a game I’d like to play.

The biggest problem with a voting system is the potential for abuse. What do you when you’re a healer in a tight spot and you have to make the call for who dies and who doesn’t because you just don’t have the time/mana to save them both. The person you let die takes it personal and tells his guild, which just happens to be an 800 member guild focused on abusing guild experience/rewards and the whole guild goes and nails you with downvotes on his behalf?

Let’s say you then limit it to only people who are actually running with you. You win a piece of gear over the other two casters in your group, they’re pissed so they downvote you out of spite even though you did a great job, meanwhile the other two party members bail before they vote?

Or you pug solo, the other 4 are in a guild run, they all vote you down for only having 10k DPS and they all upvote each other.

It’s one of those systems that if it worked as intended it would be great, but the world isn’t perfect so it’s more or less doomed to failure.

I might still heal occasionally in a random but now I will only do it if I get a goodie bag from it which means I will heal randoms less.

All my hybrids have a tank or a healing spec so only my pure DPS ever sign up as DPS and I feel as if they are being screwed.

As you mentioned and Feisttherogue mentioned DPS is actually more important because they can make the run easier.

If I am on my hunter I am trapping, silencing, kiting, protecting the healer, offtanking if needed with my pet, avoiding all avoidable damage, always following kill order and still pulling over 50% of all damage done.

I want to know where my bag is for helping make the run so easy and being willing to wait 40 minutes if I queue alone to help a random group out.

Let the drama flow. Either way it does not change anything in the way I play much. I just might queue less on my healers while I wait for the option for the get the bag.

I enjoy the arguments for and against it. It makes for good reading and shows how out of touch Blizzard is with its player base.

And that’s exactly why I don’t think this is a lasting fix. We shouldn’t be giving extra rewards to people who already have the benefit of instant queues when the real root of the issue is that we’re not getting enough gear to those that have long queues.

Someone on ejb made a great post about their theory on how this can be a good thing. To summarize, you have people who tank/heal/DPS because they enjoy those jobs and then you have people who DPS because they’re so goddamned awful at the game that they can only play the role with the lowest “skill floor.” Encouraging people in that group to play specs that have a higher minimum level of skill to succeed will in turn encourage those players to play better overall.

I can definitely agree with the theory behind that. I know from my own experience that my skill level has increased with every new spec and role I fill. I became better at DPS after I rolled a tank, I got better at both tanking and DPS after I rolled a healer.

And it still applies today as I fill different roles in the same settings whether it’s from changing specs or from changing characters/classes all together.

One thing they could think about is creating new ways to improve gear other than just grinding dungeons. How about giving more JP to those DPS who wait in queue longer, a point a minute? 2 points? How about letting players choose JP or Honor on battlegrounds up front. How about allowing dps with longer queue times than 5 minutes get a bag of goodies too? Although it seems like they are trying to address this issue, the lack of creativity of throwing out stuff to scarce classes participating is very very very short sighted.

Yeah, that’s where I was going for the most part. I think the incentive idea is a good one in it’s roots, but not as implemented, and I think they would get further in pleasing the DPS if they gave them extra rewards for the long queues rather than tanks/healers. Not to unbalance things, but rather to find the balance we’re already lacking.

“I want to know where my bag is for helping make the run so easy and being willing to wait 40 minutes if I queue alone to help a random group out.”

I think the biggest issue here is that people don’t seem to be able to differentiate between the concept of “reward” and “incentivize.”

This isn’t a reward for competent tanking, it’s an incentive to queue in the first place whereas most tanks don’t have any incentive to run random dungeons as most good tanks have a guild they can run with instead of having to deal with the risk of bad groups in the RDF.

Look at it this way: most DPS aren’t like you. By and large, a lot of DPS in the random dungeons don’t follow marks, pull if the tank isn’t moving fast enough, open up with AoE before the tank can gather aggro, stand in crap (Less so for hunters with your lack of cast times). I’m personally relatively new to WoW (Started right before Wrath dropped) and an overall casual who plays almost entirely healers. I’m levelling up a Pally for tanking and I find myself wondering while doing it how people deal with it at high levels. Tanking random groups is, strictly speaking, a nightmare (And this is from someone who thinks the whining about healing being too hard right now is a joke) and since Blizzard can’t make the large pool of bad DPS not bad anymore, this is the next best thing in my mind.

(starting at the end)
I often find that LFG while leveling is far more frustrating due to people doing stupid crap than it is at higher level. Thanks to heirlooms and general content nerfs to help leveling go faster, you can tank almost everything up to Outlands with a naked mage, so people just do whatever they feel like to make the run go faster so they can get their experience and get out.

I see much less of that at high level, though it most definitely still exists.

Your point about rewards vs. incentives is excellent. But it doesn’t change the situation which is classes with already short queues getting extra benefits. I think it should be an all or nothing reward as it’s a team effort. DPS shouldn’t be left out of rewards, incentives, or whatever else you feel like labeling them as simply because they chose a different class/role when they chose their character.

I’ve been on both sides of this coin. As a tank I stopped pugging due to stupid DPS. As a hunter, I stopped pugging due to stupid tanks.

What I have yet to figure out is that at other than max level, the queue times seem pretty fair. You hit max level as DPS and suddenly you go from 15 to 40 minute wait times.

I thought I read that this Call to Arms was suppose to be class based. Say if their are not enough paladins, or mages by the computer’s estimate. Did I read that wrong? Healers and tanks would get the extra incentive, but if their is a lack of hunters, hunters would get the CtA until their was balance. Did I read wrong?

Hi Nochecazador – I think it is by role (tank, heal, dps) rather than class. Although the other change to level out the matched armour types by role is also going in soon, so you should not be in a group with another hunter very often.

I wonder if they will separate the difference between dps with cc and dps which dont (dk, war, cat)?

In general, this hasn’t been my experience. While there are a few bosses that require a high degree of competence from the dps, many fights can be completed with a skilled tank, one dps that doesn’t stand in fire, and a healer with a good mana pool. For every Erudax, where two fail dps means a wipe, there is an Altairus, where I have had at least two 11+ minute kills.